Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Class Warfare?

Is it possible to read the sexual triumph of Horner, who gets away with his ruse in the end, as actually a social triumph in a class war between the (newly re-established) aristocrat and the (Cromwellian, over-reaching) citizen? From Blunt in The Rover to Pinchwife in The Country Wife, these comedies of wit seem to rely on the gulling of characters who think of themselves as socially superior to their acquaintances, but who end up the butt of their own overly proud coventousness. Indeed, it seems as if wit itself -- represented usually by sexual prowess and conquest -- has migrated from being a city commodity before 1642 to being very much a court commodity in the Restoration. Is this emblematic of an implicit class conflict in post-1660 London?

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